RECLAIMING THE EARTH 



most important, in some ways, among all the 

 varied activities of this period. 



I passed along a palm-bordered road, one 

 day, where but a few years before sand and 

 stunted chaparral and the dreaded cactus 

 marked the region as fit only for the seat and 

 home of Desolation. On one side of the road, 

 far toward the blue foothills, spread the glossy 

 green tops of the greatest lemon orchard in 

 the world, full thirty thousand acres, reclaimed 

 by the water impounded in the near-by moun- 

 tains or pumped here and there from the 

 rivers that run upside down, those curious 

 California rivers flowing through the sands 

 below the sight of the eye. Beyond the moun- 

 tains of Mexico in the distance stretched the 

 blue Pacific, and in the far offing you might 

 see white battleships riding lazily at anchor. 

 It was a rare scene, full of placid beauty, sug- 

 gestive of riches and content. 



On the other side of the road the trees were 

 dead, their bare branches stretched toward the 

 great hot sun, their lifeless roots held fast in 

 the vise-like grip of the deep-baked soil. Acre 

 after acre stretched away toward the circling 

 mountains to the north, unrelieved in their 



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